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Label:Born in Kentucky, William Hawkins moved to Ohio in 1916. He began to paint sometime in the 1930s, turning to it full time in the mid- to late 1970s. While little is known of his early work, Hawkins's later paintings of public buildings, ships, and prize farm animals often drew inspiration from magazine illustrations or his own black-and-white photographs. His interpretations of these subjects are dramatic and expressive, as can be seen in the boldly colorful Prescilla, Fall River Line.

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Gifts in Honor of the 125th Anniversary of the Philadelphia Museum of Art

The promised anniversary pledge of a future gift of a rich and diverse group of more than fifty works by various American self-taught and visionary folk artists from the collection of Dr. Nancy F. Karlins Thoman and her husband, Mark Thoman, greatly expands the Museum's ability to exhibit these important artists. In addition to assembling a significant number of works by such artists as William L. Hawkins, Louis Monza, Nellie Mae Rowe, William Traylor, and Vestie Davis, Dr. Karlins researched, documented, and preserved one of the most extensive and complete representations of the imaginative paintings and drawings of the Pennsylvania folk painter Justin McCarthy, over twenty of which are included in this gift. Jack L. Lindsey, from Philadelphia Museum of Art: Gifts in Honor of the 125th Anniversary (2002), pp. 126-127.